Ghana has adopted a new approach to project management that will make it possible to attract much needed investment into the power sector.
The country’s approach of inviting Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to supplement the power produced by the Volta River Authority (VRA) came up for discussion at the Global African Investment Summit currently taking place in London.
Concerns have been raised about the poor financial performance and operational efficiency of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), with the fear that, being the main buyer of power in the country to distribute to end users, could discourage potential investors and put IPPs at a disadvantage.
[contextly_sidebar id=”WI7lVpqcbRClKHzmQ5jaIqwM1ntqzvSM”]But speaking to Citi Business News at the Global African Investment Summit, Finance Minister Seth Terkper, said Ghana is moving towards the enclave approach to financing projects which emphases on inflows from the sector rather than simply focussing on one institution.
According to him, this new approach would make it possible to utilities for a example the ECG to repay their debts while their medium to long term restructuring takes place.
“You can continue to look at ECG as the constraint, as the institution that is constraining everything or you can continue to look at the sector as generating revenues is not everybody who defaulting in payments. So if you want to service your debt, you can look at the sector. After all when you look at when you take a loan, it is revenues that pay the loan even though is institutions. I mean we are already doing it, GRIDCO, VRA and ECG gets resources and so is it possible to in terms of debt servicing look at a portion of the revenue that they are earning and use it to back stop the loan that they are taking.”
President John Mahama has also said the Ghana is likely to become Africa’s most efficient power producer in Africa by 2020.
He was also speaking at the ongoing Global African Investment Summit and said he is optimistic Ghana will have the most efficient power sector in Africa after the Millennium Challenge Compact II (MCC) on power is rolled out.
The millennium challenge compact II is expected to take off by 2015 and the five year program will concentrate on the county’s power sector.
Industry has been complaining about the erratic power supply in the country which is affecting their business and has also caused several businesses to collapse.
Some analysts have also argued that constant power supply could trigger economic boom in the country.
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By: Bernard Avle/citifmonline.com/Ghana